Disclaimer: Don't own anything!
Author's Note: The weather here's been lovely—below 95 degrees for the first time since like January. It's awesome. Been reading The Reluctant Mage, which is the second book in the Fisherman's Children series. It was a little slow for like the first third of it, but it's been speeding up.
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"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds blood with me shall be my brother."
-Shakespeare
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"We pushed them back." Viren said, rubbing his forehead. "They're off our lands."
"Then why the tone?" Yuan asked, sitting with legs crossed on the floor of the General's tent. Maps were spread on the ground as well, detailed and carefully maintained. He noticed that there were no actual words on them, just small symbols. "You sound like you've got a headache the size of the moon."
"That's almost accurate. And because we can't keep doing this. Too many of our people are dying because the humans keep pushing the borders."
Kratos was the first to figure it out. "So what you're saying is that you want to give them a reason to keep to their own side of the mountains."
Viren looked at him. "You don't sound like you agree."
"I think that if you attack them like you're planning on doing, you'll only make them angrier. Or reinforce the idea that they were right about you from the start in their head. It'll provoke them into attacking back at you."
Viren leaned forward. "Has that happened on other fronts?"
"I don't know. I'm only telling you what I think."
"We can't decide something like this based on what he thinks." Zaren was sitting with them, arm in a sling from where he'd taken a bad fall from the rocks fending off several attackers. Martel had offered to heal it, but he'd waved her away. "Save your magic for the people who really need it." He'd said.
Zaren and Yuan were different, sometimes radically so to the point where you wondered how on earth they could possibly be related. Then, other times, Martel saw Zaren do or say something and she saw them as closely as twins.
Viren arched an eyebrow. "Out of the six of us, I think that Kratos is the one who's most likely to understand the humans' ways of thinking."
Yuan glanced around the maps, at the symbols—no numbers, never numbers or letters—inked onto them. "It looks to me like we're low on troops."
"We are. The humans have captured many of us and killed just as many."
"Why don't we just get those people out?" Mithos piped up. "The ones in the ranches."
"It's not that easy." Zaren told him. "Those ranches have too many guards. And we don't know how to use them machines."
"I do." Kratos said. "I can do it."
"And so can I." Yuan had learned everything right alongside Kratos and they were more or less the only two that could read human.
"And the guards?"
Mithos was the one to give Zaren an odd look. "We fight them."
"You're not going." Martel told him sternly.
"Martel, I can help!" Mithos said, suddenly on his feet. "Those humans, they'd look at me and see a kid! They won't think I'm any harm."
"And what happens when they see that you are?" Martel countered. "You'll get yourself killed."
"Not if we're there." Viren said thoughtfully. "The six of us here could do it. Three and three. Yuan, Kratos and Zaren can get to their machines and shut down the security while the three of us get the people out."
"I'm no good with machines." Zaren told his best friend. Most half-elves weren't.
"True, but someone needs to guard them." The General nodded at Yuan and Kratos. "And the inmates might need Healing."
"That's all well and good," Martel said, "But how exactly do you plan to pull this off? We'd have to sneak through human lands—across enemy lines, mind you, because their troops are literally on the other side of those mountains—and sneak back out with dozens, possibly hundreds, of freed slaves."
"A distraction could work." Mithos leaned over the largest map spread between all of them, blue eyes intent. His small fingers traced a path over the largest pass through the mountains. "Here. It's easily defensible, isn't it?"
Kratos peered at it. "Yeah, it is. If we take the high ground, we could hold that spot for hours, maybe even a day. Where's the nearest ranch?"
"Thirty miles west along the mountains." Yuan rattled off. He'd memorized the map as quickly as he'd memorized the spellings of the words that Kratos had taken the time to teach him.
A quick glance at the map proved he was right.
"If we leave earlier than the armies, we could probably get there without having to alert the human army and therefore avoid any extra casualties." Yuan muttered, eyes flashing across the map, collecting data.
Viren glanced at the strange group of four sitting with him. He knew that Zaren was on his side, had been on his side since he'd spoken up for him in the ranch, had taken lashes for him. But these four, their loyalty was to each other first, he knew that, even if they didn't know it yet. "So, you're with me then? You'll go in with me to get those people out?"
The four glanced at each other, Kratos-and-Yuan to Mithos-and-Martel. As one, they nodded. "Yes, we're in."